Among the various video display systems available in the art, an optical projection system is known to be capable of providing a high quality display in a large scale. In such an optical projection system, light from a lamp is uniformly illuminated onto, e.g., an array of M.times.N mirrors. The array of M.times.N mirrors is mounted on an array of actuators which includes a corresponding number, i.e., M.times.N, of actuators such that each of the mirrors is coupled with each of the actuators. The actuators are made of an electrodisplacive material such as piezoelectric or electrostrictive material which deforms in response to an electric field applied thereto.
When a reflected light beam from each of the mirrors is incident upon an aperture of a baffle, by applying an electrical signal to each of the actuators, the relative position of each of the mirrors to the incident light beam can be altered, thereby causing a deviation in the optical path of the reflected beam from each of the mirrors. As the optical path of each of the reflected beams is varied, the amount of light reflected from each of the mirrors which passes through the aperture is changed, thereby modulating the intensity of the beam. The modulated beams through the aperture are transmitted onto a projection screen via an appropriate optical device such as a projection lens, to thereby display an image thereon.
Each of the actuators for use in the above-described optical projection system is conventionally made of multiple layers of an electrode and an electrodisplacive material, wherein each layer of the electrode is placed between two layers of the electrodisplacive material, which renders the structure and manufacturing process of such an array of actuators rather complex and costly.